RNC chair Reince Preibus welcomes gay-marriage supporters into GOP

Same-sex marriage — or marriage equality, as many of its supporters phrase it — has deeply divided the Republican Party. Recently, a group of 80 leading Republicans, including some top members of George W. Bush’s Cabinet and staff, filed a legal brief with the Supreme Court seeking to strike down California’s prohibition on same-sex marriage.

Q: Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman was one of a group of leading Republicans who signed the amicus brief in support of striking down [California’s] Prop. 8. Is gay marriage something that the party needs to make a shift in the next election? What do you think that move says?

RP: “I think it says that our party understands that we don’t have to agree on 100 percent of the issues 100 percent of the time to qualify as a good Republicans. I mean, I don’t agree with my wife on 100 percent of the issues, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have a good marriage.

“I think that’s the same philosophy that we need to bring to our party — the idea that we can grow our party by division and subtraction is ridiculous.

“We can only grow our party through addition and multiplication. Anyone who wants to join our party is welcome into our party…If we really believe those things we have to start living them. I’m going to repeat that over and over again.”